It Is Cyber Monday and The World Has Gone Nuts!!

Waking up to news that coaches in the NHL are losing their jobs and MLB Executives are being handed their walking papers, what exactly is there to be thankful for a mere 72 hours removed from turkey dinner?

Well, Topps snuck this little nugget into my e-mail this morning.......

BAM!!

I am not one to get excited over mock ups but, I can tell you this, I will be waiting for Spring 2012 when collectors will be able to get their hands on the very first Topps certified autograph cards of Ken Griffey Jr.

Nice move Topps!!


Cheers,

My 2011 National Experience - A $1 Well Spent

One of the more enticing and exciting aspects of The National I was looking forward to was the fabled "Quarter Boxes" that I have long heard about but have never had the joy of experiencing first hand. I have seen the videos and heard the stories of numerous wonders discovered in these beasts. As a matter of fact, I even saw with my own two eyes one of the wonders of the 2011 National Quarter Box hunt that was claimed by Chris Harris over at Stale Gum.

Sadly, for this NSCC Rookie, there was simply far too much to see and do at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center that I never truly had the time to troll these deposits of wondrous discovery with the proper focus and respect they deserve. I did get to spend around 40 minutes on Sunday morning at the table of one dealer. I came away with out $20 worth of singles and inserts that will complete some sets and spark the quest for completion of others.

Out of the total money spent I have decided to show off what I feel to be the best $1.00 I spent on my maiden voyage into the abyss that is "The Quarter Box".

The first card goes toward my completion of my 1979 Topps Toronto Blue Jays Team set. Garth Iorg is hardly the feature of this card but it IS one of those great Topps-isms that place a player you need on a card with a player that "makes" the card. By no means is it unattainable on the regular market but when you can take home a Rookie Card of perhaps one of the most consistent players ever and one half of arguably the best infield combination ever for a quarter, you do it.


Being a Canadian this next card made absolute sense when I first saw it. When I saw it again I thought; "Why Not?". When I saw it for a third time I new it was meant to be. That is right, I brought home not one.....

.....NOT TWO.....

.....BUT THREE!!!!!

Yes, three copies of Tim Raines' 1981 Topps Rookie Card. If you have to ask then I will never be able to explain it to you.

My plan for 2012 in Baltimore is already taking shape and I plan to venture back to these Quarter Boxes for sure. This time, I will be better prepared and have much greater respect for these behemoths of the hobby.

Cheers,

Box Break - Topps Series 2 Baseball

As I mentioned before I have a couple of Topps Series 2 box breaks to post here. Part of the delay has been spent trying to figure out just what to post about it. Nobody needs to see the base cards; there have been more than enough images of those made available. In the end I decided to post what I would find most useful; the actual breakdown of what was in the boxes. I ended up purchasing two of the HTA Jumbo boxes which supposedly contain 10 packs of 50 cards. I say supposedly because not a single pack contained 50 cards, it actually ranged between 46 to 48 cards per pack. Nonetheless, the appeal of the Jumbo boxes for me is the potential to have a box yield a complete base set. Once again, notice the adjective there? In a perfect world where quality control would actually mean something you would get a complete set of base cards in a box. This was not the case here. On that I still do not know how I feel.

Just in case you are interested I will post the pack ratios for the inserts in the Jumbos;

Gold Parallel, Ring of Honor, Legends of the Game(LOTG) and Turkey Reds are 1:1

Topps Town 1:2

Black Parallel 1:10

Platinum Parallel 1:2,500

Printing Plates 1:210

Red Hot Rookie Redemption 1:10

WBC Stars 1:2

LOTG SP Variations 1:17

LOTG Career Best 1:6

LOTG Gold 1:345

LOTG Platinum 1:1,400

LOTG Stamps 1:590

WBC Stamps 1:1,733

Sketch Cards 1:2,800

Framed Silk 1:55

Ring of Honor Autos 1:823

LOTG Relic 1:1,282

LOTG Career Best Relic 1:3,100

Career Best Relic Platinum 1:160

Career Best Autos Group A 1:71, Group B 1:13

Career Best Relics Group A 1:56, Group B1:15

WBC Stars Autos 1:270

WBC Stars Relics 1:51

1959 Mickey Mantle Reprint Relic 1:18,000

LOTG Cut Autographs 1:16,500

LOTG Career Best Cut Signature 1:101,220

Career Best Auto/Relic 1:538

WBC Stars Auto/Relic 1:2,700

Career Best Dual Relic 1:92

Career Best Base Paths Quad Relic 1:535

American Legends Cut Sig 1:101,220

Career Best Jumbo Patch Relic 1:1,335

LOTG Letter Patch 1:40

Legendary Letters Commemorative Patch 1:20

Now here is what the first box yielded;

489 Cards Pulled*

425 Base Cards (318/330 96% of a set)

64 Insert Cards

95 Dupes

*23 Damaged/Mis-cut cards

I like the carry-over of the Inserts from Series 1, in particular the ‘Turkey Red’ and ‘Legends of the Game’. However, I have a couple complaints.

#1 – The ‘Legends of the Game’ inserts in Series 1 were numbered to 1 to 25. WHY could Topps not have continued this and gone from 26 to 50? WHY must the same themed set be numbered completely different in Series 2? It is a small but OH SO ANNOYING variation.

#2 – The ‘Turkey Red’ cards in Series 1 had a muted retro cardboard look to the fronts. Series 2 shine like they have been handled by someone who has finished a dozen glazed doughnuts. This is sin when you are continuing a set. The operative word here is continuity!!

Here are the scans of my Insert pulls pack by pack;

Pack #1

Pack #2

Pack #3

Pack #4

Pack #5

Pack #6

Pack #7

Pack #8

Pack #9

Pack #10

The other appeal that the Jumbo Boxes have for me is the opportunity for 2 Relic and 1 Auto card per box. At heart I am a set collector and rarely do “hits” hold that much of a draw for me. However, understand I am addicted to busting packs and the excitement of pulling something relatively unique from a pack can be lots of fun too.

Here are the “box hits”, so to speak, from this break;

Career Best Jersey Relic - Matt Kemp


Career Best Autograph - Akinori Iwamura


Legendary Letters Commemorative Patch - Mel Ott (#34/50)

I think this break was, on the best, average. Nothing really jumps out at me and the only high-spot was the SP of Wade. Box #2 was way more exciting and once I get the scans of it sorted I will post it. One thing I will say is that there were a couple pulls that will make some fellow bloggers quite happy as I will be sending them along in the near future.
Keep looking for my traders list on the side of my blog too. I will be uploading a list that hopefully people will find some useful cards for their collection.

Cheers,